Ex-judge says 2002 Cottrell suit little more than a ‘hoax’

Retired Circuit Judge Steve Wilson said Monday that there was no conspiracy to bring down the University of Alabama football program, despite a 2002 lawsuit that alleged one.

By Jason MortonSenior Writer

TUSCALOOSA | Retired Circuit Judge Steve Wilson said Monday that there was no conspiracy to bring down the University of Alabama football program, despite a 2002 lawsuit that alleged one.In fact, Wilson said the civil suit brought by former UA assistant coach Ronnie Cottrell amounted to little more than a hoax.Wilson presided over the suit that Cottrell brought against the NCAA, two UA employees, radio talk show host Paul Finebaum and others claiming that he was libeled, slandered, defamed and unable to find coaching work in the aftermath of the NCAA investigation of UA’s football program and the recruiting of Memphis, Tenn., high school standout Albert Means.He has now written a book — “A Lynch Mob Mentality: Ronald W. Cottrell vs. NCAA, The Untold Story” — that chronicles what he describes as one of the most controversial civil lawsuits in the history of Alabama and college football.The judge, who stepped down in 2008, said the rules governing judges in Alabama prevented him from speaking out on the case while he remained on the bench.Now, he said, those rules no longer apply.“In the book I tell you the truth, and it is something you have not heard up until this point,” Wilson said Monday to the Kiwanis Club of Tuscaloosa during his first public appearance to promote the book. “For two-and-a-half years I had to remain silent ... and watch what, in my mind, amounted to a hoax.”The NCAA hammered UA after its investigation, and its findings included charges of unethical conduct against Cottrell and Ivy Williams, who were assistants under then-UA coach Mike DuBose. Those charges were later dropped and, ultimately, neither man was cited for major rules violations.But Cottrell filed his suit in December 2002 seeking $60 million in damages, and Williams joined it in 2003. The case went to trial in July 2005, when a jury issued a verdict against recruiting analyst Tom Culpepper for $30 million.Culpepper was the last defendant standing after Wilson granted motions during the trial to dismiss the allegations against the NCAA, the SEC, Finebaum and others.Wilson also removed Williams as a defendant and reduced Cottrell’s case to simply defamation by Culpepper, a recruiting analyst who was introduced to NCAA officials during the Means investigation by former University of Tennessee head football coach Phillip Fulmer.Months after the jury verdict was announced, Wilson threw that out, too, and ordered a new trial. His rulings were upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court, and allegations of judicial misconduct brought by Cottrell’s lawyers were later found by the state’s Judicial Inquiry Commission to be unfounded.On Monday, Wilson told the Kiwanis Club that his book contains details that show Fulmer and Tennessee were not conspiring to bring down Alabama, as alleged by attorneys for the plaintiffs.Wilson said shoddy reporting by the state and national media led to a frenzy of anger that resulted in the $30 million judgment against Culpepper.The retired judge said his book contains details that show it was part of lead Cottrell attorney Thomas Gallion’s legal strategy to use the media to mislead the public into believing that there was a University of Tennessee-led conspiracy to bring down Alabama football and that was what led to the defamation of Cottrell and Williams. He also said the book would show that lawyers withheld certain documents from the press to help deliver that message.For example, the much-discussed memos from Fulmer to the SEC home office that raised questions surrounding Means’ recruitment made no mention of Alabama’s involvement, Wilson said.The SEC’s investigation of those memos resulted in the allegations being declared an “unsubstantiated rumor,” which in turn meant that none of its member institutions were warned that violations, specifically by UA booster Logan Young, were occurring in the recruitment of Means.“(Another) thing that was not told to (the press) is that the Albert Means violation was not reported by the University of Tennessee,” Wilson said, “but by the University of Arkansas. ...“All of these facts totally refuted the UT conspiracy in the case.”Still, Wilson said the penalties imposed against UA by the NCAA — a two-year bowl ban, 21 lost scholarships and five years’ probation — forced the athletics department to correct its course and become the respected model of NCAA compliance it is today.“As a result of that investigation,” said Wilson, a UA grad and lifelong Tuscaloosa County native, “we have a cleaned house ... and have crossed over the River Jordan and we are now living in the Promised Land.”